Black Destiny
by hashtagYOPO
Summary: If only he had remembered, none of this would have happened. If only he hadn't been so curious, fate wouldn't have tugged him along. If only two worlds did not rely on each other so heavily, then no one would be in pain. If only it wasn't possible... Then again, isn't hindsight 20/20 vision? When it all comes together, healing will happen... but that's the calm before the storm.
1. Episode 1: Prolouge

**Hello. I'm here to bring you a hopefully somewhat different fan fiction! Before we begin, there are a few things that I need to say. The first is that, obviously, I don't own Hetalia. The second is that this was heavily inspired by various Hetalia fan games, and therefore may be similar in style. Hopefully I move away from that eventually. Third, this has not been beta'd. If a mysterious friend appears to do so, I wouldn't mind, but unless you all beg for it I don't really care either way. Finally, I am very welcoming of any reviews, so long as said reviews are not simply flames. Constructive criticism is, however, appreciated. I hope you enjoy this! -#YOPO**

* * *

_The story goes like this._

_Once upon a time, in an ancient kingdom known as China, there lived a young boy with dark brown hair, almost black. He had dark eyes and a certain childish air around him that many in his time did not posses. These were dark times, and not many people were given time to be childish anymore. However, like all people, this boy had a great fear. In order to remove his fear from existence, he went on a quest to find a dragon._

_The dragon lived on the top of a mountain, and was moved by the boy's hard work and desperate quest. "Very well," said the dragon, "I will grant the wish, whatever it may be." As the young boy looked up at the gold smoke arising around the creature, he said this:_

_"Please! Immortal one! I am young, but everyone around me is dying. I am afraid! Please, Immortal one! Make it so that I, like you, may never die!" He shivered as a cold breeze crossed his own and the dragon's hands, a breeze binding the wish. Still, the dragon tried to warn the boy._

_"I will grant the wish, but I must warn you. Once the wish takes hold of you, you will never be able to go back. You will never again be the human you once were." However, the boy was not to be dissuaded from his path. He begged the dragon again and again, each time the dragon repeating the words. Each time, the chill around their hands grew deeper and deeper until it refused to lift, and the dragon knew it was too late. The vow could never be undone. He lifted his massive paw, his long, worming body twisting as he reared his full height into the air, before falling down again to wrap around the boy. Soon, the dragon's nose was nearly touching the boy's nose._

_"Very well," he said, "I have given you all the chances you have to undo your wish. Now I must grant it." The chill grew to unbearable levels, wrapping the boy, and suddenly the boy felt a spirit light up inside of him. This spirit hurt with the pain of the entire kingdom and sang with the love of the entire kingdom. It built and built until the young boy, who's body and soul were not strong enough for such a thing, screamed out. He fell to the ground, in immense pain, as the feelings from year after year before he was born rushed into him, giving him the memories of not a human, but a nation. He knew what he had become, and he knew that he would live for a long, long time. However, it hurt, it hurt so much as memory after memory of pain entered his blood and pumped through his heart._

_"What have you done?" he croaked. The dragon gave a pitied look, and a tear fell down his face, though he tried to hide it._

_"I tried to warn you, brave child, but you would not listen." As the boy cried out, the dragon felt great sorrow for what he had done, for the boy was a kind soul who did not deserve such pain. His length spanned into his cave, eventually coming out with a black ring. On the ring was a single twist, creating a shape that seemed to continue for an infinity. He slowly and carefully carried the ring out to the boy._

_"Here," he said, "take this. It is the World Ring, and will connect you to another world, where another boy is making the very same wish as you are. Through this, you, and all of his and your own kind, will share each other's pain." He slid the ring gently onto the boy's finger. As he did, the boy looked up with golden eyes, eyes that had suddenly gotten much, much wiser, and suddenly held pain that wasn't there before. The vestiges of that boys earlier childishness remained, but only barely._

_"Okay," he whispered, before slowly walking away before a saddened dragon's eyes._

_However, another dragon, this one more powerful than the first was watching. Despite being more powerful, however, he had fewer emotions, and the two dragons had never won a fight against the other, for heart and soul and dreams can be just as powerful as magic. He roared at the first dragon, and the two began to fight again._

_"WHY WOULD YOU GIVE A CHILD SUCH A VALUABLE AND DANGEROUS RING! THEY SHOULD BOTH BE DESTROYED!" screamed the second dragon dragon._

_"CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT HE IS IN PAIN? CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT HE IS A CHILD, NOT A STONE TO BE CRUSHED?" roared the first dragon in response._

_In the end, neither dragon won, and a compromise had to be made. The child was to forget everything he had learned on that day, as well as his past self. He would continue to wear the ring, for the ring helped him to never remember a past that was too painful for him to bear, a past in which he had been happy, brave, and afraid of death. However, he would no longer know what it was truly doing, only that he should never take it off._

_Thousands of years later, the boy has grown into a man, a man reaching the peak of his power. The world has created many of his kind, and his kind all found themselves sharing power, though they did not know it. However, each time a new nation-spirit was born, the boy could not help but feel guilty, though he would never remember what for._

_And so it remained for a long time..._

* * *

In a hotel room, a boy wakes up. Next to him, sleeping soundly on the nearby twin bed, is his half-brother, or something like that. The room is small. Their parents are most likely sleeping in the adjoining room. The boy smooths down his blonde hair and slowly sits up. He is wearing pajamas with anchors on them. Next to the bed is a hat. The Principality of Sealand sits in silence, partially because he doesn't want to wake Ladonia up, and partially because he is trying to remember his dreams from that night.

What exactly had they been, anyway? He remembered a ring, and some voice, but he couldn't remember or recognize much else. The ring though... that had sure been something nicer than he had ever owned, not that he didn't own nice things. Sealand sighed. Then again, most of his nice things technically belonged to his parents... Being an unrecognized state didn't give him access to much money.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. He still had half an hour before he was to be woken up, but he wasn't going to be able to fall back into sleep, was he? He got out of bed completely, wandering over to the closet to change clothes. His parents had probably woken up hours ago, so they wouldn't mind him waking up a little early. It was exciting; they were going to a World Meeting, and Peter was going to sneak in! Again! This time, he could feel it. He would learn of an important problem that only he could fix, and the world would be grateful, and everything would be wonderful! Maybe that was a bit optimistic, but he had to be at least a little optimistic at all times. Otherwise he would have given up long ago. It wasn't easy, after all, to be constantly told (even by his own parents!) that he wasn't a nation, but Sealand knew better!

Putting on the hat, he skipped out of the room to his parent's adjoining room, where breakfast should be waiting. To his surprise, however, he found a note on the table, and no parents. Odd. Deciding the note would most likely explain things, he pulled the not off the table.

_Hello Sealand! Hello Ladonia!  
We got called in early for some kind of emergency meeting. Sorry that we weren't here when you woke up!  
-Mom and Dad_

"The meeting... started early?" he murmured, before it hit him. The meeting had already started! He had to wake up Ladonia! "LADONIA! THE MEETING'S ALREADY STARTED! COME ON, COME ON, COME ON!" he shouted. After a few moments, a groggy but dressed Ladonia wandered into the room.

"Why do you get to be in charge, idiot?" said Ladonia. "We can miss the first part! After all, I should be in charge here, and I'm too tired for that right now." Sealand impatiently tapped his foot.

"But I have a feeling about this meeting! This one's going to be the one!" Sealand said it, and he truly meant it. He had some intuition that he needed to get going to the meeting _right now_.

"Shut up," said Ladonia, "and let me eat."

"We can eat afterwords! COME ON, LAD!"

"MY NAME'S LADONIA!"

"AND MINE'S SEALAND! WHATEVER! WE NEED TO GO _NOW_!" However, as opposed to actually helping, Ladonia stubbornly sat down to eat.

"Fine," muttered Sealand, "but let's eat quickly, okay?"

"Yeah yeah," muttered Ladonia. Sealand had a feeling they wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.

* * *

Meanwhile, the meeting had started. The emergency had turned out to be a fluke, and everyone was rather angry. No one knew who had made the official call, since it was an automated message in their chosen language, but most of them assumed it was America. He forcefully denied it, and it was a little bit difficult not to believe him. He wasn't one who liked to be awoken terribly early, after all. Still, who else would be so rash? They would have blamed one of the Italys, but the two were still asleep. In the end, they just assumed America was trying to dodge the blame.

He wasn't the one who called the meeting.

The one who did couldn't remember why, but he had an utter feeling of dread. Something was missing. Something important. Therefore, he had pressed the button, only to realize he didn't know what to say. All he knew was that it was buried deep in his hidden past, a past that, try as he might he never could remember. But how was he supposed to explain that?

* * *

As Ladonia _finally_ finished his breakfast, Sealand was already impatiently tapping his foot. Something was telling him that they had missed something important, or at the very least were about to. "Finally!" he practically shouted as his somewhat-brother micronation stood up from the table. "We have to get going! Now!"

"Yeah yeah," muttered Ladonia, "We probably just missed them arguing over the emergency meeting call."

"That still doesn't matter! We have to get going!" snapped Sealand, and with that he dragged Ladonia out of the bedroom and into the hallway. It was lined with a red and gold carpet, and led down the rooms until they reached the elevator. Each room had a name assigned to it in English, though the meeting was being held in China at the time. _America... Italy... Germany... Romano... Spain..._ ran the names as Sealand pulled Ladonia down the hall. One thing stopped him for a moment: China's name had been knocked off the wall somehow, as though someone who was tired and not thinking straight had slammed the door, or at least into the side of it. Sealand was slightly unsettled by this. China's room was near the Button.

And what was the Button? The Button was one of America's only sane ideas. From what Sealand could tell, it was a button that allowed a nation who found themselves in distress or who had just had some sort of national emergency to call the assembly of nations together before it was normally time. This only worked if all of the nations were already congregated; they had phone hot lines for if it happened while they were away from each other. Sealand then remembered something: hadn't the meeting started early due to an emergency? Maybe the button had been pressed. He hoped everyone was alright...

By now, Ladonia had gone on ahead, muttering to himself that "you were the stupid idiot who wanted to get going early," and other such nonsense. Peter shrugged, then started to walk, only to notice a trail of what looked like water- no, not water, black ice. But what was it doing in a hotel? Curiosity got the better of him, and he followed it down the hotel hallway, leaving Ladonia behind. Wait. No, shouldn't he be going to the meeting? However, and odd bravery overtook him, and he started using arguments against himself that sounded flimsy, especially considering their similarity to Lad's arguments, but... it certainly couldn't hurt, right? He'd then get China to tell the hotel about the ice so that nobody fell. Nodding to himself, reassuring himself that it was a good plan, Sealand followed the path to a small fountain situated in the lobby of the hotel, or at least, he was fairly certain it was the lobby. He hadn't been paying attention when they had arrived the previous night. In any case, the receptionist seemed to be out. Glancing in the fountain, he found a perfect sphere of black ice.

"What... What is this?" he murmured, before carefully lifting the cube out of the water. The ice melted in his palms, much faster than he would have suspected it would. One glimpse at what was inside made him gasp. It was... the ring from his dream? But how? How had it gotten there?

Maybe what he was about to do was stupid. Maybe it was rash. Maybe it was what anyone would do. Regardless, what he was about to do would change his life forever, as well as set a fate in motion that had no ending but bittersweet. He should have walked away. He couldn't, though.

The black ring with a single twist was slipped onto his finger.

All at once, all the sound and color in the world seemed to surround him until it all swirled into a black, reptilian shade. It seemed that for a moment, his eyes went out of focus, then black into it. Suddenly, the world flashed again, and it was all gone. It was nothingness, and such a feeling is what caused him to collapse.

When Ladonia was crossing the street to get to the meeting, it hit him: Sealand was nowhere to be found. He was in sooooo much trouble... He shouted out "SEALAND!" to no avail. He broke into a run, searching as hard as he could. Sealand had the route memorized, so he wasn't lost... Wait. The hotel. He had been left behind in the hotel, right? Maybe he was there. Yeah! That was it! Sealand had to be there! He rushed back to the hotel, only to hear a loud rushing noise. He reared back at a great light, then rushed inside, only to find...

...absolutely nothing.

No more than five minutes later, an impressive time for a ten-minute journey, a breathless Ladonia threw open the meeting doors. "SEALAND! SEALAND'S MISSING!" Finland and Sweden and, surprisingly, England all rushed towards him. No more than ten seconds later, China collapsed. Pandemonium erupted.

* * *

A third dragon smiled. This dragon was not painted in brilliant, bright colors like the others, but was instead the color of a black snake. His eyes, however, seemed to reflect the world in four ways at once, and were the most startling blue. The dragon smiled.

"Capture your destiny, my champion. The Children's Tragedy has begun. Do you think you can stop it in time?" He smiled, and it was a cruel and pointed smile, the smile of not a god, but of a beast.

Darkness. The dragon is gone.


	2. Episode 2: Awkening

**Hello, folks! I'm so excited! I actually got views! And reviews! As a result, this is coming out much earlier than it might have. I am notorious for doing things late... I hope I live up to your expectations~! For future reference, some last names have been changed for the sake of the story, a fact that will make perfect sense once you read. Also, Asian names have been put in the Western order: individual name first, familial name second. This is mainly to prevent confusion and also makes sense. Thanks for reading, everybody! -#YOPO**

* * *

He would remember that day for the rest of his life. Everything was perfect for such an occasion, everything but one thing. It certainly wasn't the weather. The constant cold air and snow had ended suddenly, leaving a sun that felt like the most glorious thing in the world on his frozen self. It definitely wasn't the atmosphere. He was standing in front of the shrine. The forest was cool and dark. The evergreen trees around him, mostly pine trees with a few spruce, painted the ground patterns with the light shining through their branches. The melting snow had left crystalline puddles sprawled across emerald moss. The shrine itself was impressive: a tall shaft of rock with a hole that sucked all light out of it, top and center. The rock had been polished. Patterns had been cut into it, representing the four dragons. One could assume the hole symbolised the Great Dragon, but that would be assuming things. After all, the Great Dragon was not well-liked.

The thing that was missing was his brother's approval, as well as the witness of his family, a tradition for the ceremony he was about to have to break.

The sting in the man's heart reverberated. He could do this, though. His brother did not oversee his life. They weren't even related! He could do this, and he would be powerful, and he would be safe, and he would always know what would happen. He could go through with it, and his dreams would come true. So why hesitate? Go for it for it already! Do what your heart knows you desire!

"Traitor," whispered a voice inside his head. "He gave you everything. He told you that he specifically disapproved of doing this. He has his reasons."

They were idiotic reasons, though! He was older now, he had passed his twenty-first year, he no longer needed his brother! He had, after all, only three years earlier, come into an unexplained inheritance that changed him from a little orphan boy to one of the wealthiest men that anyone could name.

"Traitor," whispered that voice. "Traitor. Did he not adopt you, even when he thought it could never end well for himself, only for your sake?"

No, no, no! Then why did he adopt him, anyway? It's not like his brother hadn't adopted three other children as well, cared for them! Besides, he had adopted his family into his inheritance too, knowing full well how it could hurt him. It's not like it's an uncommon thing to put those you love before you! He stepped forward, raising his hands above his head. He pressed them together, pulling them down towards his heart. He could do this. It wasn't that hard. He just needed his heart into it. Ah, yes, heart. He had wanted this for so long, hadn't he? THen when he said the words, it should work well enough!

"Traitor," continued the voice.

"SHUT UP!" he roared, breaking the moment. He shook his head, composed himself. He shouldn't lose control of his emotions like that. He couldn't! He hadn't since he was very little. It used to worry his brother. His brother. Why did it matter? He needed to stop thinking of his brother and start thinking of himself!

"Traitor," whispered the voice. "This will be like taking a sword to your brother's heart, you know."

Ah. There's the real hesitation. He drops his hands and sobs. He wanted it. He wanted it. Why did the choice have to be so hard: his desire or his brother? Why? Because, like it or not, his brother mattered to him. Because, like it or not, this choice would kill his brother.

In the end, he did not wind up choosing. Something else, something equally life-changing, happened instead, leaving him with an entirely different choice. Something that fell right through that endless, light-sucking hole, and right on top of his damp shoes.

His family was to remain intact for another day.

* * *

As Sealand woke up, he panicked, believing himself to be in another nothingness. He could not bear such nothingness again. However, a few moments in, he realized that he felt something beneath his folded knees, and he relaxed somewhat. He was not nowhere. Even though he could see nothing, he could feel the smooth, rounded surface that indicated that he was, in fact, somewhere. Trying to stand up, he quickly hit his head. Alright. The ceiling of wherever it was that he was happened to be too low to stand. Carefully, he felt around himself. He did not have enough room to turn around, though he had enough room to crawl. The entire surface of this place was smooth and rounded, as though he had been inserted into a long metal pipe. The surface, however, felt much too stony and certainly not cold enough to be metal. Sealand smiled a bit despite himself. Watch the recognized nations figure out that much!

However, this excited state did not last long. He needed to figure out where he was, and even though he determined that he was in some sort of stone hole, he could not see for how long the hole extended, or any light at all, for that matter. He could not turn around, so if he had been inserted head-first into a dead end, he would most likely be completely stuck, unless he backed up. If there was any obstacle in any direction, he was stuck. He started to panic again. What if there was no way out! Breathe, Sealand. He shook his head. He still felt woozy enough from the bizarre sensation he had gotten upon putting on the ring. Could that have something to do with the situation? He hoped not. He would not know what to do if it did. Give the ring back? To whom? He had taken it out of the hotel lobby's fountain, not off of a person's finger! Maybe the ring was cursed. That Jerk often talked of curses, after all. Maybe That Jerk hadn't been hallucinating? There had been that one time...

That was off topic an Sealand knew it. A better thought to be having was this: how does one get out of the situation he had just found himself in? Sealand sighed. He suppose he'd crawl forwards, then. After all, just the idea of crawling backwards was making him feel nervous. Slowly, he put a hand forward, reassuring himself that the world still existed as he crawled. He flinched on automatic every time he put a hand out, and every time was greeted not with trouble, but with the same redundant surface. Bit by bit, he felt the urge to scream. Was there no end to the tunnel he was crawling through? He had yet to see the light anywhere!

Suddenly, his hand touched the air. He could feel the breeze. Why couldn't he see it? Then he was tumbling forward. Instinct rolled in, the sort he never thought he'd have to use but had the time to learn. As the sudden light blinded him, he rolled in the air and landed on his feet. His knees, however, betrayed him, giving way to gravity and folding. His head, still woozy, agreed, and he found himself on mossy earth and wet leather. Leather? Someone's shoes? He blinked some, but the world was rocking back and forth.

"Hello, Mister," said Sealand, "I'm Sealand! Do you know where I am?" On that note, he promptly collapsed from the ordeal once more, leaving a very confused Kiku Honda wondering what sort of name 'Sealand' was.

* * *

Suddenly, Kiku realized how Yao must have felt back then. Staring at the boy below him, a boy apparently named 'Sealand', collapsed at his feet, he remembered with shocking clarity when Yao picked him up out of the heavy snow and said, "Come with me! We can't have you dying of a cold, aru!" Kiku could very well save this child's life by pulling him from the hostile forest. For one, recently animals had been growing more aggressive, and the boy hardly looked like a fighter. Another thing clear was that the boy's skin wasn't built for the incredible cold Kiku had become accustomed to.

However, as bad as it sounds, the man had an argument against taking the boy with him as well. He had come from the hole that most likely symbolized the Great Dragon. The Great Dragon wasn't known for kindness. In fact, he was known for bringing disaster. Maybe the boy would wake up on his own and solve Kiku's problems? When he didn't, Kiku sighed, his prior inner conflict forgotten. He wasn't leaving a boy in the cold for having unlucky signs. After all, he he himself had unlucky eyes, the sort that displayed no emotion. He grabbed the boy, lifting him into his arms.

Internally, subconsciously, he leaped for joy. Ah, he was going home! He was going home to Yao, a happy Yao. He wasn't a traitor yet! There was also a part of him that recognized that he would return, and that when he did, it would be just as hard of a decision. But who knew? Maybe this boy, this Sealand child, could change his point of view just enough to know what was right? He doubted it, but miracles happened all the time, he supposed.

As he walked down the path to his home in Samui Village, the boy stirred in his arms. His eyes fluttered open. Kiku fought the urge to ask the boy how he had gotten in the shrine. It would be pointless at the time. However, Kiku's curiosity was now brimming about the oddly named boy.

"Mister Japan? Why are you carrying me? And when did it get so cold?" asked the boy suddenly. Kiku frowned. That sentence only raised more questions.

"You collapsed in front of the shrine," responded Kiku. "I apologize for not introducing myself, but my name is not Japan. I am Kiku Honda. Do I remind you of someone you know?" he asked, none of his curiosity showing on his face. As an afterthought, he added, "It is the cold season. Surely you have not been unconscious for many months?"

The boy looked confused. "Funny, you look exactly... like... him..." murmured the boy. "Even your eyes... I've never seen another's like it..." And indeed, those eyes that the boy had pointed out were hiding emotion still; they were hiding shock. Shock that another like him existed, let alone one for a boy to point out a similarity none but Lilith Zwilingi shared completely with him, and even then, Lilith's eyes showed more emotion than his own grey-brown orbs.

"Really?" he said, acting passive but turning around inside. A sudden thought hit him. He had heard the legend, but it should be impossible... It was worth asking still, he supposed. "Do you know where you are?" he asked. "Do you know who is king?"

The boy's confusion grew. "I thought I was in Beijing, China, and that China had no king?" Kiku couldn't hide the shock this time.

There was no such place as China.

* * *

And yet, despite this absolute law, yet here was a place and a person named China. His head hurt. He was lying on something cold. What exactly had just happened? He had blacked out, obviously. The world around him was dark and murky, as if he was seeing it through black tinted glass. More than that, it i certainly didn't look like anything he recognized. All around him was a dead, grey landscape. In front of him was something that looked remarkably mirror-like, though he could not see his reflection. Behind him was the way out of whatever dream he was in, as China knew no place in reality that looked like where he was.

Then, suddenly, his reflection appeared. However, it was a strange appearance. He could have sworn that the reflection was in the wrong place on the mirror. Curious, he walked up to touch the glassy surface of the mirror. His hand was burnt, and he reared back, only to find that his reflection had not also moved closer to the mirror, but was instead standing some distance away, an odd, reflective expression on his face. Then, he saw the reflection walk to the glass. They both cocked their heads, wondering exactly what sort of dream they had ended up in and why they were there, for there MUST be a reason.

Suddenly, in a language China knew but couldn't place, the reflection spoke. "Can you hear me, aru?"

China nodded. "Yes." He felt that he'd answered in a language that wasn't Chinese or English. What exactly had it been?

"Oh! I've herd old legends about this sort off thing, aru!" The reflection paused. "My name is Yao Honda. I think I passed out earlier, but I have no idea why." China paused. That last name sounded wrong for some reason. He shook it off. There couldn't be that much wrong with it, right? And what was he to judge? It wasn't like he had met this Yao before, anyway.

"What legends? My own name is China. Do you know where we are, aru?" he asked.

"In our heads, I would guess," answered Yao. He had a thoughtful expression on his face, like someone who had just been given a particularly interesting puzzle to puzzle out. Suddenly, China felt the world the world around him shudder.

_"Chi... Okay... Wake..."_

His eyes snapped open to see a worried world nearby. However, Yao's eyes were the ones China was concentrating on, along with a feeling that he knew exactly what was happening.

he just couldn't remember.


End file.
